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I am posting a short gallery of photos from my trip to Croatia in November as a bright interlude to one of the most miserable weather spells I can remember. It’s almost official. According to the Belgian weather service we are headed for a new weather record this month – for lack of sunshine. The previous record low for December in 1934 saw just 10 hours of sunshine. So far this month we have recorded under 5, and apart from a few glimmers this morning it’s not looking promising up to New Year’s Eve.

Prior to December I spent an incredibly wet November week in the Basque Country and prior to that our trip to Croatia wasn’t overcast the whole time, but did present the city in a bit of a grey light. So when the medical professors speaking in Belgian media suggest that there might be a case for Vitamin D supplements all round I might be at the front of the queue.

Now it’s very easy for my colleagues from sunnier climes to be rude about the weather around the North Sea zone, but actually we have had some great months here by my reckoning and I have accumulated a stunning collection of sunrise and sunset photos over the past few years to prove my point.

It has been a bit of a shocker though, apart from our two days of snow it has been “grisaille” the whole time, a French word which I think should mean “grizzly” but is translated by various web sites as “dreariness”. I think grisaille sits alongside the Scots word “dreich” as a proper weather word that sounds just as it should – pretty miserable.

But I digress – to the antidote.

As is my style I got up early in the morning in Zagreb and went for a wander round the city, which was indeed buried under a blanket of cloud. But at one point I rounded a corner and was presented by the city market.

Not only did the bright canopies lift the gloom but it was as if the fruit and vegetables had been prepared to appear as features on the cover of a glossy food magazine, they were positively luminous.

At the time I was uplifted, loving the idea that nature could create such vibrancy and looking back now I am still smiling. All my daily vitamins in a photo!